hed carefully on the under side of the lapel--a
square piece of calico with an address written on it in marking ink.

The Chief Inspector removed his smoothing hand.

"I carried it off with me without anybody taking notice," he said. "I
thought it best. It can always be produced if required."

The Assistant Commissioner, rising a little in his chair, pulled the
cloth over to his side of the table. He sat looking at it in silence.
Only the number 32 and the name of Brett Street were written in marking
ink on a piece of calico slightly larger than an ordinary cigarette
paper. He was genuinely surprised.

"Can't understand why he should have gone about labelled like this," he
said, looking up at Chief Inspector Heat. "It's a most extraordinary
thing."

"I met once in the smoking-room of a hotel an old gentleman who went
about with his name and address sewn on in all his coats in case of an
accident or sudden illness," said the Chief Inspector. "He professed to
be eighty-four years old, but he didn't look his age. He told me he was
also afraid of losing his memory suddenly, like those people he has been
reading of in the papers."

A question from the Assistant Commissioner, who wanted to know what was
No. 32 Brett Street, interrupted that reminiscence abruptly. The Chief
Inspector, driven down to the ground by unfair artifices, had elected to
walk the path of unreserved openness. If he believed firmly that to know
too much was not good for the department, the judicious holding back of
knowledge was as far as his loyalty dared to go for the good of the
service. If the Assistant Commissioner wanted to mismanage this affair
nothing, of course, could prevent him. But, on his own part, he now saw
no reason for a display of alacrity. So he answered concisely:

"It's a shop, sir."

The Assistant Commissioner, with his eyes lowered on the rag of blue
cloth, waited for more information. As that did not come he proceeded to
obtain it by a series of questions propounded with gentle patience. Thus
he acquired an idea of the nature of Mr Verloc's commerce, of his
personal appearance, and heard at last his name. In a pause the
Assistant Commissioner raised his eyes, and discovered some animation on
the Chief Inspector's face. They looked at each other in silence.

"Of course," said the latter, "the department has no record of that man."

"Did any of my predecessors have any knowledge of what you have told me
no